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Rush hour-and-a-half: Traffic is spreading out post-lockdown

Traffic congestion is ubiquitous in major cities around the world. Congestion is associated with a slew of negative effects, including delays and local air pollution. Because of the negative effects of congestion, governments invest billions of dollars into the highway system to try to reduce conges...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Bhagat-Conway, Matthew Wigginton, Zhang, Sam
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10499251/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37703238
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290534
Descripción
Sumario:Traffic congestion is ubiquitous in major cities around the world. Congestion is associated with a slew of negative effects, including delays and local air pollution. Because of the negative effects of congestion, governments invest billions of dollars into the highway system to try to reduce congestion and accommodate peak-hour automobile travel demand. The COVID-19 pandemic presented a significant disruption to transportation systems globally. One impact was a drastic reduction in travel, leading to free-flowing traffic conditions in many previously-congested cities. As lockdowns eased, traffic volumes returned to near-normal levels. However, the temporal pattern of demand may differ, due to increased remote work or other factors. In this article, we examine the temporal distribution of highway demand in California, using data from over 3,500 traffic sensors. We find that peak-hour automobile travel is spreading in the post-lockdown period. In addition to decreased traffic congestion, this finding also has implications for infrastructure investment. Roadways are generally sized based on peak-hour demand. As the peaks spread, some highway construction project may prove unnecessary. It may be possible to reallocate road space to other uses with fewer tradeoffs in terms of traffic congestion.